The Buddha called contentment "the greatest wealth." Contentment, "santutthi" in Pali, supports many other wholesome states including, renunciation, equanimity, peace, gratitude and generosity. We can cultivate contentment on and off the cushion while not being complacent or lazy in our dharma practice.
The fifth and last in a series of talks discusses the troublesome patterns of mind and volitional action that we identify as self, and how we can step out of them with the tools of dharma practice. The Buddha said that one who is fully awake has found an end to karma, and end to compulsive formations.
This talk explores the Buddha's teaching on Clear Comprehension also called Full Awareness. The commitment to see our motivation in our mind, moment by moment, without glossing over, leads to happiness and purification.
By clarifying our greater aspiration we create a mindful container to see our habitual thinking arise without acting upon it and the result is living of life of non-harming.
However we describe our practice, we are longing for happiness and ease. This talk explores how we get in our own way with that, pursuing ideas of happiness while missing something fundamental about our very existence which can bring us back into the freedom of being which beckons us. Like the Sufi poet Hafiz says, "Ever since Happiness first heard your name, it has been running through the streets crying out to you."
This powerful teaching form the Upanisa Sutta shows us how suffering when understood with wisdom leads to faith and is the beginning of a natural unfolding of beautiful qualities of the heart which provide the foundation for the mind to turn to awakening.
